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Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Turkey Tracking .... for the month of November, 2016


Full fledged chaos is fast approaching.  Karma is a bitch. 



Turkish top court approves jail term for opposition HDP leader
Turkey's Supreme Court approves the Adana court's decision to sentence HDP co-chair Yüksekdag to a 10-month jail term
The 16th Criminal Office of Supreme Court on Wednesday approved a 10-month imprisonment for the opposition Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Figen Yüksekdag for making propaganda for a terrorist organization.

A charge of promoting terrorists, namely the Marxist–Leninist Communist Party (MLKP), propaganda against Yüksekdag relates to a speech she gave during her visit to MLKP terrorist Yasemin Çiftçi's commemoration ceremony in the southern province of Adana in 2012....


Turkey blocks social media sites again to stall protests — here’s how to access them
Turkey has once again blocked access to social media in an apparent effort to keep a lid on protests; many in the capital and elsewhere are demonstrating following the arrest of a number of opposition leaders.
Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube are reportedly blocked or at least being throttled to the point of inaccessibility, reported Turkey Blocks. The outage started late last night and seems to be ongoing. The government also blocked internet access entirely for several days in some locations earlier this week.....


04/11/2016
Police have fired tear gas to disperse crowds of demonstrators in Istanbul.

Many are angry about the arrests overnight of several pro-Kurdish politicians.

Fighting broke out between police and protesters in a number of cities.

Officials say 10 protesters were detained in Ankara, five in Antalya and seven in Istanbul.



Erdogan’s Al Qaeda Mercenary Army of Uyyghur Chinese “Jihadists” Dispatched to Syria
...Pres. Erdogan’s mercenary Army are all Chinese citizens of the far Western region in China, and home of the Uygur people, and are Sunni Muslims.  The Uygur people are an ethnic group of Muslims living near the far west frontier of China and they speak the ancient Turkic language, which is the root of the modern Turkish language now spoken in Turkey.  Their province is Xinjiang, and their capital city is Urumqi.
For many years, Pres. Erdogan has supported the Uygur’s claims of oppression by the Chinese government.  Pres. Erdogan has made speeches in which he compared the Uygur people to the ancestors of the people of Turkey.  Pres. Erdogan feels there is a close historical and ethnical tie between modern Turkey and the Uygur people.  In a speech, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated that “Eastern Turkestan is not only the home of the Turkic peoples, but it is also the cradle of Turkic history, civilization, and culture. The martyrs of Eastern Turkestan are our own martyrs.”  His designation of Eastern Turkestan is actually the Chinese province of Xinjiang, the home of the Uygur people.

Pres. Erdogan used his own mercenary Army of Chinese citizens: the Uygurs.   He had allowed them Turkish passports, which they used to pass legally through Central Asia to arrive in Turkey.  The immigration officials at the airport in Turkey recognized these special passports, and would confiscate them, but allow the Chinese to pass through legally and enter Turkey.  Pres. Erdogan had arranged for them to be transported from the airport in Turkey into Syria through the large and porous border area North of Idlib, which was once a mid-size town in North West Syria.....

Turkey pro-Kurdish leaders Demirtas and Yuksekdag detained
The two co-leaders of Turkey's pro-Kurdish HDP opposition party have been detained along with other MPs, officials say.

Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag were detained as part of a counter-terrorism inquiry, security sources quoted by Anadolu news agency said.
Mr Demirtas was detained at his home in the south-eastern city of Diyarbakir while Ms Yuksekdag was taken into custody in Ankara.
Nine other HDP MPs were also held.

Turkey claims that the HDP has links to the PKK Kurdish militant group, but the party strongly denies this.......

Car bomb blast in Turkey's Diyarbakir kills nine
The attack targeted a police station in the south-eastern city and comes after Turkish authorities arrested senior HDP leaders from the region as part of a counter-terrorism investigation.
At least seven civilians and two police officers were killed when a car bomb targeting a police station exploded in Turkey's south-eastern city of Diyarbakir on Friday morning, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said. The attack was originally attributed to PKK, which has been designated as a terror group by the US, EU, NATO and Turkey, but was later claimed by Daesh.

The blast came hours after the Turkish government detained 11 lawmakers from opposition party HDP from several areas including Diyarbakir, Ankara, Hakkari, Van, Sirnak and Bingol.

"We as a nation strongly condemn this inhuman attack," Yildirim said, adding one suspected terrorist was also killed by the security forces.
The attack took place around 8am local time (0500 GMT) near a building used by riot police. Around 100 people were injured as the explosion occurred in a densely-populated area. Vehicles and nearby buildings were damaged by the impact.

Earlier in the day, the Diyarbakir provincial governor's office released a statement saying the PKK claimed responsibility for the attack. In a video message on a website associated with PKK, one of the group’s commanders said it would intensify armed action against Turkey.

However, by early Saturday morning, Daesh had claimed responsibility for the attack on its news agency Amaq...

nov11
Egypt slams Erdogan's 'double standards'
Egypt condemned what it described as “irresponsible” statements made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about the Egyptian government.

Earlier on Thursday, Erdogan said during an interview with Qatari channel Al-Jazeera that he accused “the Egyptian regime of providing support to the Gulen movement”, which is led by Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who has been accused of masterminding the failed coup attempt in Turkey last July.

“We differentiate between the Egyptian people and the administration there. We love the nation like it was ours and that’s why we have provided all support to them but we are against coup governments and the violation of freedoms, and we will stand with the Egyptian people in their fight for democracy,” the Turkish president said during the interview aired on Thursday.

In an official statement on Thursday, the Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman said Egypt considered the Turkish statements as a “continuation to the blundering and double standards approach that the Turkish policies have been characterised  by through out the past years.”

The foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid expressed his “surprise” at the Turkish president inaugurating himself as a “guardian of democracy and protector of freedoms at a time when his government is arresting hundreds of professors and media personnel and tens of parliamentary members, as well as shutting down tens of newspapers and eliminating thousands of civil workers and army officers and judges from their jobs.....




Nov 14
Sirnak residents face ruins as they return after 246-day curfew
After 246 days, the curfew in the Kurdish town of Sirnak is partially lifted from the hours of 05:00-22:00 each day since Monday.

A curfew was declared in the town on March 14, where operations against the urban youth wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the Civil Protection Units (YPS) were launched. The YPS waged an armed fight against military forces in the town, with demands of autonomy.

Sirnak, a town with a population of about 290,000 once, is now a town left demolished as a result of the Turkish army’s attacks on the town during operations against the YPS.

The extent of the destruction became evident with the lifting of the curfew, with many homes destroyed and razed to the ground. Displaced locals returning to the town, most of whom had to live in tents and nearby towns, will return only to face with the elimination of their homes.

Alongside many homes, the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and the Democratic Regions Party (DBP) headquarters in the town are seen to be demolished. Parks and gardens are amongst the destroyed areas in the town, yet these areas had witnessed no clashes during the course of fighting which ended months ago....

Nov 17
Senior EU figure says FETO "certainly played a role" in failed coup
First vice president of the European Commission Frans Timmermans' statements marks the first time a senior European Commission official has spoken about FETO's involvement in the coup attempt.
Allegations regarding the role of the Fethullah Gulen Terror Organisation (FETO) in Turkey's July 15 coup attempt are not "total nonsense," a senior European official said.
Turkey accuses FETO, led by Fethullah Gulen, of being behind the attempted coup which resulted in the deaths of 248 people. Turkey also accuses the group of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and judiciary.

First vice president of the European Commission Frans Timmermans, was quoted in an interview with a Belgian magazine saying US investigations are pointing to "growing indications that the FETO certainly played a role."....

Nov 18
UN expert urges Turkey to release detainees
amid “grave concern” about free speech
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye, today expressed deep concern about widespread measures being used to erode independent opinion and expression in Turkey.

“Across the board, the Government is imposing draconian measures that limit freedom of expression,” said Mr. Kaye at the end of a one-week official mission to the country.
“The press, individuals online, artists, opposition voices and many others face unprecedented pressure, from censorship to outright detention. I urge the Government to reverse this course and return to protecting and promoting the rights that all people in Turkey enjoy under their Constitution and international human rights law.”
Mr. Kaye said that Turkey was facing a wide variety of threats, and he had particular sympathy for those who continued to feel the shock of the 15 July attempted coup, the deaths and injuries it caused, and its assault on Turkey’s democratic institutions.....

Nov 20
15 arrested after Kurds clash with pro-Erdogan demonstrators in Paris – media
Fifteen people have been reportedly arrested after dozens of Kurdish protesters opposing the policy of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan clashed with police and pro-Erdogan demonstrators as a rally of hundreds in support of the Turkish president was held in Paris.

The incidents took place as about 700 Erdogan supporters rallied at Place de la Republique in central Paris....




Three Turkish soldiers killed in suspected Syrian government air strike
An air strike “thought to have been carried” out by Syrian government forces killed three Turkish soldiers and wounded 10 others, one of them seriously, early on Nov. 24, the Turkish Armed Forces has announced.

The attack occurred at around 3:30 am in the course of the Operations Euphrates Shield in northern Syria, the army statement said, adding that the wounded soldiers were evacuated rapidly from the area.

It is the first time Turkish soldiers are known to have been killed by Syrian government forces in the offensive which was launched on Aug. 24.

Nov 24
Blast in Turkish city of Adana kills two people, wounds 16 - governor
An explosion which rocked the governor's building in the southern Turkish city of Adana killed two people and wounded another 16, provincial governor Mahmut Demirtas was cited as saying by the state-run Anadolu agency on Thursday.

Anadolu said the blast occurred in a vehicle in the car park in front of the building.

Ankara vows ‘retaliation’ against Syrian attack on Turkish troops 
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has said an attack by the Syrian regime that killed three Turkish troops in northern Syria will “not be left unanswered,” vowing that the Turkish army’s determination to “clear the area of terrorists is unaffected by the move.”...

Nov 25
Turkey will open border gates if European Union goes "too far"
Turkey hosts more than three million refugees and says it has spent more $15 billion on them.
Turkey would allow refugees to stream into Europe if EU leaders continued to back away from their promises, President Recep Tayyip  Erdogan said on Friday.

Erdogan's statement comes a day after the European Parliament voted for the temporary suspension of accession talks with Ankara.
He said that Turkey was hosting 3.5 million refugees – mostly Syrian – and had spent $15 billion in the process.
“If you go too far, the border gates will be opened," Erdogan was quoted as saying by Anadolu Agency during the Second International Women and Justice Summit in Istanbul.
Turkey and the EU signed the refugee deal on March 20, 2016, in which Turkey agreed to take back refugees who cross into Greece illegally. According to statistics from Turkey's Interior Ministry, there are currently 140,000 undocumented refugees....




Erdogan: Turkish forces are in Syria to end Assad's rule

 Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that the Turkish Army entered Syria to end the rule of President Bashar Assad, whom he accused of terrorism and causing the deaths of thousands.

“We entered [Syria] to end the rule of the tyrant al-Assad who terrorizes with state terror. [We didn’t enter] for any other reason,” the Turkish president said at the first Inter-Parliamentary Jerusalem Platform Symposium in Istanbul, as quoted by Hurriyet daily.

Erdogan said that Turkey has no territorial claims in Syria, but instead wants to hand over power to the Syrian population, adding that Ankara is seeking to restore “justice.”.......

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Sunday, November 27, 2016

Canada's Mr. Flip Flop does it again


Why, oh why can't a politician take the flak for whatever statements they make?  Trudeau, a typical lying politician says one thing on any given Monday and quite another on any given Tuesday.
Trudeau proves he is an IDIOT with a capital "I"  ... no guts whatsoever to stand by his statement when he finds much to his horror that people disagree with him.  You can't please everyone all the time, but politicians try their best to do so by lying to your face ... a la Justin Trudeau.


On November 26 From PM's office
Statement by the Prime Minister of Canada
on the death of former Cuban President Fidel Castro
Antananarivo, Madagascar
November 26, 2016
The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today issued the following statement on the death of former Cuban President Fidel Castro:

“It is with deep sorrow that I learned today of the death of Cuba’s longest serving President.

“Fidel Castro was a larger than life leader who served his people for almost half a century. A legendary revolutionary and orator, Mr. Castro made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation.

“While a controversial figure, both Mr. Castro’s supporters and detractors recognized his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people who had a deep and lasting affection for “el Comandante”....

From CBCNews on Nov 26
Trudeau faces backlash after Castro tribute
'My father was very proud to call him a friend,' PM says of Castro
The prime minister is facing criticism for his statement expressing "deep sorrow" about the death of the controversial former Cuban president Fidel Castro.

Justin Trudeau posted a written statement early Saturday after the late-night announcement that Castro had died at the age of 90.

Trudeau remembered the late president as a "legendary revolutionary and orator," and said he was a good friend of his father's......

On November 27 from CBCNews
Fidel Castro was a dictator, Trudeau says
PM grilled about statement of condolences in which he called the former Cuban president 'a remarkable leader'
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Fidel Castro was a dictator and he did not intend to minimize the former Cuban leader's human rights abuses.....

News, views and opinions from the Alternative Media ... week ending November 27


Adam Dick at RonPaulLibertyReport
Washington Post Peddles Tarring of Ron Paul Institute as Russian Propaganda
The Washington Post has a history of misrepresenting Ron Paul’s views. Last year the supposed newspaper of record ran a feature article by David A. Fahrenthold in which Fahrenthold grossly mischaracterized Paul as an advocate for calamity, oppression, and poverty — the opposite of the goals Paul routinely expresses and, indeed, expressed clearly in a speech at the event upon which Fahrenthold’s article purported to report. Such fraudulent attacks on the prominent advocate for liberty and a noninterventionist foreign policy fall in line with the newspaper’s agenda. As Future of Freedom Foundation President Jacob G. Hornberger put it in a February editorial, the Post’s agenda is guided by “the interventionist mindset that undergirds the mainstream media.”

On Thursday, the Post published a new article by Craig Timberg complaining of a “flood” of so-called fake news supported by “a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy,” To advance this conclusion, Timberg points to PropOrNot, an organization of anonymous individuals formed this year, as having identified “more than 200 websites as routine peddlers of Russian propaganda during the election season.” Look on the PropOrNot list. There is the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity’s (RPI) website RonPaulInstitute.org listed among websites termed “Russian propaganda outlets.”

What you will not find on the PropOrNot website is any particularized analysis of why the RPI website, or any website ....

Elliot Friedland at ClarionProject
Al-Qaeda Claims Responsibility for Starting Israel Fires

An Al-Qaeda-linked Salafist group claimed responsibility for setting fires which have ravaged Israel for close to a week.
Ma’sadat al-Mujahideen, a Palestinian Salafist group, claimed responsibility for carrying out arson attacks that sparked colossal fires in the northern  and central regions of Israel. Some 75,000 people were forced to flee the coastal city of Haifa as firefighters battled to bring the blaze under control.

In a statement claiming responsibility the group said that Jews must “return from whence they came since they have no place among us.”

The group has not offered proof that it was involved in setting the fires and security services are unsure if their claim is true or not.  Nevertheless, Israeli government officials said that an estimated 50% of the fires were set by arsonists. Officials in Israel on Sunday told the public that while some fires still remain, the  wave of fires which have blazed for the past six days is now mostly over.

At least 35 people have been arrested for arson since Thursday.

The damage caused by the fires was extensive. Estimate suggested that between 400-700  homes in Haifa were destroyed by the blaze.  Some 1,700 residents of Haifa who had been evacuated were unable to return on Saturday night since their homes were unlivable. At least 136 people were treated for smoke inhalation....


Nat Parry at ConsortiumNews
A Tradition of Forgetting Indian Rights
Making official a quintessential American tradition dating back to the 1621 feast between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag tribe, President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 declared the last Thursday of November to be the national day of Thanksgiving – a vain attempt to unite the North and South at the height of the Civil War.

Five years later, continuing a closely paralleled American tradition, the U.S. government signed the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, which established the Great Sioux Reservation west of the Missouri River and promised no more white settlement in a huge, 18-million acre swath of land.
Over the next two decades, as Civil War Reconstruction was completed and a nationwide Thanksgiving date was finally agreed upon by Northern and Southern states, the U.S. continuously reneged on the Fort Laramie Treaty, eventually breaking the Great Sioux Reservation up into five smaller reservations: Cheyenne River Reservation, Lower Brule Indian Reservation, Rosebud Indian Reservation, Pine Ridge Reservation, and Standing Rock Reservation.

More than a century later, in 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the government had illegally taken this land, and awarded $120.5 million to the Sioux Nation, based on the market value of the land in 1877, plus interest. For nearly four decades, however, the Lakota Sioux have refused to accept payment and instead continued to demand that the United States return the territory.

Today, the Sioux people are continuing to take a stand on these principles – the flashpoint now being the Dakota Access Pipeline, which, upon its completion is expected to transport some 470,000 barrels of crude oil a day across several states. Sioux tribe members and their allies have protested this pipeline for months, raising concerns about the threat it poses to their water supply, the effects that the fracked oil will have on the climate, and the process by which the project was approved, saying that it failed to take into account Native rights....

Fake news and videos fed to West's MSM which it swallows whole without a question.



From MoonOfAlabama at Global Research (worth the time to click on link and decide for yourself)
How White Helmets Videos Are Made. Are They Fake?
It depicts the “Making of” a scene where people in White Helmets outfit “rescue” a man. For some 20 seconds the two “rescuers” and the “victim” are motionless waiting for the command to start a hectic “rescue operation” and, when that starts, adds on the usual background sound of screaming people.

The embed is a copy I made from the original and posted on my account to make sure that it is preserved.
I do not know why the RFS Media Office would upload this. To show that the White Helmets and their videos are fake? Did they not pay their dues? Or was the channel hacked and the upload done by someone else?

The original title “Edge of death | #MannequinChallenge” points to some social media nonsense which The Telegraph describes as:

    A viral video craze, it involves people imitating mannequins and freezing for the camera while music plays in the background.

So is this a fake? Or a fake of the fakes the original White Helmets videos are (this one for example)?

Not fake enough yet?......

Annie Machon at InfomationClearingHouse
NATO or not NATO - The Question for Donald Trump

During the seemingly endless US election, a few months ago Donald Trump said at a convention that NATO is not a gift America can keep giving.

In his view – at the time – the other member states should be expected to make a greater financial contribution (the USA currently contributes 70 percent of NATO’s budget) and if not they could not expect automatic protection in the face of an attack.

On November 13 in the UK’s Observer newspaper, the Secretary General of NATO, former Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, wrote a think piece in response, and acknowledged the need for more widespread contributions, while crying up the historic importance and future need for NATO by citing growing Russian “assertiveness” (diplomat-speak for aggression) and the threat from international terrorism.

    ‘Who’s going to pay the bills and be our boss?’: Russian spox translates NATO chief’s call on Trump https://t.co/439eRkTggm
    — RT (@RT_com) 14 ?????? 2016 ?.

I was invited onto RT to analyze this and am here expanding on some of the points I made in an always-all-too-brief interview.

Stoltenberg was right to acknowledge Trump’s concerns about the contributions to NATO. But I think that he was also addressing another and already-serving president somewhat closer to home – the head of the European Commission and totemic Eurocrat, Jean-Claude Juncker – who for a while has been plotting an integrated EU army and who ramped up the rhetoric last week after Trump’s victory. The head of NATO is naturally not going to be too happy that the EU is poaching on his territory.

It was also reported in The Observer that France and Germany are planning to announce the acceleration toward an EU army over the coming weeks. So much for European-wide consensus. It would appear that Juncker also sees this as a bargaining position in future Brexit negotiations, if Britain ever does get around to triggering Article 50. Any EU army would need the UK’s contribution – not just the armed forces, which are the second largest in the EU, but also continued close cooperation with the intelligence agencies.....

Standing Rock protests


from Wikileaks
Today, Friday 25 November, WikiLeaks releases the Yemen Files.

The Yemen Files are a collection of more than 500 documents from the United States embassy in Sana'a, Yemen. Comprising more than 200 emails and 300 PDFs, the collection details official documents and correspondence pertaining to the Office for Military Cooperation (OMC) located at the US embassy. The collection spans the period from 2009 until just before the war in Yemen broke out in earnest during March 2015. This time period covers both Hillary Clinton's term as Secretary of State (20092013) and the first two years of Secretary John Kerry’s tenure.

Julian Assange said: "The war in Yemen has produced 3.15 million internally displaced persons. Although the United States government has provided most of the bombs and is deeply involved in the conduct of the war itself reportage on the war in English is conspicuously rare."

Yemen is of significant strategic interest as Yemen controls a narrow choke-point to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal through which 11% of the world's petroleum passes each day. In addition, Yemen borders Saudi Arabia (to the north) and Oman (to the east) and has access to the Arabian Sea, through which another 20% of the world's petroleum passes from the Strait of Hormuz (including the oil of Saudi Arabia and Iran). Saudi Arabia seeks to control a port in Yemen to avoid the potential constriction of its oil shipments by by Iran along the Strait of Hormuz or by countries which can control its other oil shipment path along the Red Sea.

The Yemen Files offer documentary evidence of the US arming, training and funding of Yemeni forces in the years building up to the war. ...

Mohammed Hatem at Bloomberg
It used to take two and half hours to make the simple trip
from the Yemeni city of Taiz to Aden on the southern coast. Lately, it could take an entire day using jeeps and donkeys across a mountain pass and checkpoints, showing how another Arab country is at risk of being irreversibly carved up by conflict.

More than five years after Yemen was swept up by the jubilation and turmoil of the Arab Spring, it is now a cauldron of proxy war that pits Iran against a Saudi Arabia keen to keep its arch-rival out of its backyard. The war’s mounting death toll—10,000 at the latest count—is overshadowed by even greater carnage in Syria and mostly ignored by a world confused by the complicated politics of a country few understand.

But Yemen matters, not only because people are dying. Its location makes it a potential staging point for attacks on the world’s biggest oil producer and a breeding ground for Islamist extremism. The carnage is unleashing yet another humanitarian disaster in a region that’s already being ripped apart....

Schools for sale in Japan  also known as JK culture


Form Yenisafak
24 PKK terrorists neutralized by Turkish forces

Turkish warplanes conduct an airstrike against PKK terrorists, neutralizing 24 of them in Daglica, Avasin and Basyan districts
Turkish Interior Ministry has stated as many as 24 Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorists were neutralized in the fresh operations that were conducted by the Turkish warplanes as the total number of terrorists that were neutralized by warplanes reached 909.

The operation was conducted in Daglica of Hakkari province along with the Avasin and Basyan districts.
Last week, Turkish forces conducted 221 operations that left 41 PKK terrorists neutralized, while 70 million Turkish lira worth of drugs and smuggled cigarettes were seized as a part of Turkey's counterterrorism efforts. ...

Trump on what he intends doing the first 100 days.  Wow, simply wow if he really does it. Love what he says about the life-long ban on US officials lobbying for foreign entities. That is as it should be.


Robert Parry at ConsortiumNews
Trump’s Tulsi Gabbard Factor
Two weeks after Donald Trump’s shocking upset of Hillary Clinton, the imperious and imperial neoconservatives and their liberal-interventionist understudies may finally be losing their tight grip on U.S. foreign policy.

The latest sign was Trump’s invitation for a meeting with Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, on Monday. The mainstream media commentary has almost completely missed the potential significance of this start-of-the-work-week meeting by suggesting that Trump is attracted to Gabbard’s tough words on “radical Islamic terrorism.”
Far more important is that Gabbard, a 35-year-old Iraq War veteran, endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries because of his opposition to neocon/liberal-hawk military adventures. She starred in one of the strongest political ads of the campaign, a message to Hawaiians, called “The Cost of War.”

“Bernie Sanders voted against the Iraq War,” Gabbard says. “He understands the cost of war, that that cost is continued when our veterans come home. Bernie Sanders will defend our country and take the trillions of dollars that are spent on these interventionist, regime change, unnecessary wars and invest it here at home.”

In the ad, Gabbard threw down the gauntlet to the neocons and their liberal-hawk sidekicks, by accusing them of wasting trillions of dollars “on these interventionist, regime change, unnecessary wars.” Her comments mesh closely with Trump’s own perspective.

After the meeting on Monday, Gabbard released a statement confirming that the focus of the discussion had been her opposition to escalating the war in Syria by following neocon/liberal-hawk suggestions for a “no-fly zone” that would require widespread U.S. military destruction of Syrian government installations and the killing of a large number of Syrians.

“President-elect Trump asked me to meet with him about our current policies regarding Syria, our fight against terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS, as well as other foreign policy challenges we face,” Gabbard said. “I felt it important to take the opportunity to meet with the President-elect now before the drumbeat of war that neocons have been beating drag us into an escalation of the war to overthrow the Syrian government — a war which has already cost hundreds of thousands of lives and forced millions of refugees to flee their homes in search of safety for themselves and their families. …

....“We’ve tended to say, drop another bomb via a drone and put out a headline that ‘we killed Abu Bag of Doughnuts’ and it makes us all feel good for 24 hours,” Flynn said. “And you know what? It doesn’t matter. It just made them a martyr, it just created a new reason to fight us even harder.”

That leaves open the possibility that a President Trump might eschew the “whack-a-mole” approach that has bedeviled the “war on terror” and instead go after the “mole nest” – if you will – the Saudi monarchy that has long financed Islamic extremists both through the fundamentalist Wahhabi brand of Sunni Islam and by supplying money and weapons to jihadists dating back at least to the Afghan mujahedeen in the 1980s, the origin of modern Islamic terrorism.

Traditional U.S. politicians have recoiled from facing up to the hard reality that the Saudi monarchy is the real “terror central” because of Saudi Arabia’s enormous riches and influence, which is now enhanced by its quiet alliance with Israel in their joint campaign against the so-called “Shiite crescent,” from Iran through Syria to Lebanon’s Hezbollah...



from LarouchePac
No, the FBI Didn't Do It: This Is a Global Paradigm Shift
Following the discussions of potentially fundamentally new U.S.-Russia and U.S.-China economic relations by president-elect Donald Trump with the Russian and Chinese presidents, this week's Asia-Pacific Economic Conference (APEC) conference in Peru may see the replacement of Obama's failed TPP "trade deal" with a new trade agreement initiated by China with 19 other countries including Trump's United States. The steady building of a new economic paradigm around the "win-win" great infrastructure projects of the New Silk Road, will take another major step forward. This is what the United States must join with a new national credit institution, conquering Wall Street with a new Glass-Steagall Act.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, who will speak to the Peruvian Economists Association national conference on the eve of the APEC conference, gave this send-off to New York State activists heading to Washington to demand Glass-Steagall:....


Sunday, November 20, 2016

Some news, views and opinions from the Alternative Media ... week ending November 20


Mark Taliano at GlobalResearch
Voices from Syria Refute Western Propaganda:
US-NATO Supported Terrorists Involved in Countless Atrocities
Jad Nasr lives in Syria.  He’s 29, and he has a Master’s in English literature.  He sometimes uses his considerable talents by serving as translator for high Syrian dignitaries, such as the Grand Mufti.

He also has the scar from a bullet wound in his chest, and he receives death threats.  He explains that terrorists shot him because they didn’t want to hear the truth.  Presumably, the terrorists prefer their own version of the “truth”, as dictated by Wahhabi – supporting al Jazeera and Safa TV… as well as all mainstream media messaging promulgated by the West.

Jad’s story is not pleasant, and it highlights what Syrians have to endure on a daily basis.  He says that his brother was kidnapped last year, and that the terrorists tortured him and destroyed his knees.  Now he can’t walk.   He also told me that his cousin, who was serving in the Syrian Arab Army, lost his leg when Wahhabi suicide bombers attacked his military vehicle. Another cousin was kidnapped in 2012, and remains in captivity....

....The terrorists control occupied territories with unspeakable barbarism.  A witness to the massacre at Adra described the scene in these words:

    The rebels began to attack the government centers, and attacked the police station—where all the policemen were killed after only a brief clash because of the large numbers of the attackers. They (the attackers) then headed to the checkpoint located on the edge of the city before moving to the clinic, where they slaughtered one from the medical staff and put his head in the popular market. They then dragged his body in front of townspeople who gathered to see what was happening. Bakery workers who resisted their machinery being taken away were roasted in their own oven. Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic Front fighters went from house to house with a list of names and none of those taken away then has been seen since.’

    When the Syrian army would try to enter Adra the Jihadists would throw women and children from the 20,000 people it captured off the top floors in front of the army.”

Nasr also discussed the lies propagated by imperialists, and believed by multitudes.  He says that for the first three weeks of the so-called “revolution”, police and security personnel were ordered to not carry guns.  It was during this time that 15 of Nasr’s friends were killed by so-called “peaceful protestors”....




Ron Paul at InstituteForPeaceAndProsperity
Memo to the Next Administration:
 Defense Spending Must Be For Actual Defense
In a disturbing indication of how difficult it would be to bring military spending in line with actual threats overseas, House Armed Services Chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry (R – TX) told President Obama last week that his war funding request of $11.6 billion for the rest of the year was far too low. That figure for the last two months of 2016 is larger than Spain’s budget for the entire year! And this is just a “war-fighting” supplemental, not actual “defense” spending! More US troops are being sent to Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere and the supplemental request is a way to pay for them without falling afoul of the “sequestration” limits.

The question is whether this increase in US military activity and spending overseas actually keeps us safer, or whether it simply keeps the deep state and the military-industrial complex alive and well-funded.

Unfortunately many Americans confuse defense spending with military spending. The two terms are used almost interchangeably. But there is a huge difference. I have always said that I wouldn’t cut anything from the defense budget. We need a robust defense of the United States and it would be foolish to believe that we have no enemies or potential enemies.

The military budget is something very different from the defense budget. ....

Chris Rossini at RonPaulLibertyReport
REVEALED: The Real Fake News List

We've seen the make-shift "fake news" list created by a leftist feminist professor. Well, another fake news list has been revealed and this one holds a lot more water.

This list contains the culprits who told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and lied us into multiple bogus wars. These are the news sources that told us "if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor." They told us that Hillary Clinton had a 98% of winning the election. They tell us in a never-ending loop that "The economy is in great shape!"

This is the real Fake News List (and it's sourced):


Jay Dyer at 21CenturyWire
Dyer: ‘LA Times ‘Fake News’ Article is an Attack on Independent Media’

According to a recent feature article published by the LA Times, and which has since gone viral, this website, 21st Century Wire, has been placed at the top of a “list” of “fake” news sites compiled by Dr Melissa Zimdars, an associate professor at Merrimack College in Massachusetts.

Aside from being a highly political attempt to discredit a number of online news source which Dr Zimdars and the Democratic Party establishment probably labels as “Alt Right,” this coordinated effort also points directly to a much deeper agenda, as part of a larger as psychological operation to create an algorithm for “filtering” (censoring) news items on major internet platforms and social networks.....




Jack Murphy at Sofrep
Three Green Berets killed by ISIS infiltrator after CIA ignored warnings

Green Berets Matthew Lewellen, Kevin McEnroe, and James Moriarty approached the Prince Faisal Airbase in Jordan in their vehicle along with one Jordanian military officer. They were assigned the IA mission, meaning inter-agency, as a part of the CIA’s Timber Sycamore covert operation to train and arm so-called moderate Syrian rebels. At the gate there was an exchange of gunfire which Jordanian authorities have described as a, “chain of unfortunate events.” Amidst the bedlam at the gate, a Special Forces Team Sergeant confronted the the shooter after failing to deescalate the attack. The Team Sergeant wounded the shooter during the firefight, who is now being held by the Jordanian government for questioning.

Initial reports were conflicted with each other, and a subsequent FBI investigation describes finding no trace of terrorist activity involved in the incident.  At first the Jordanians claimed that one of the Special Forces soldiers opened fire at the gate unprovoked.  A second story claimed that one of the Americans accidentally discharged his weapon leading to a confused firefight of mistaken identity. However, according to multiple sources inside Special Forces, the shooter conducted a deliberate and pre-planned assault on the 5th Special Forces Group members.  Multiple sources confirmed that the shooter is an ISIS sympathizer. Lewellen, McEnroe, and Moriarty, who were in the process of transitioning back to the United States were killed, the Jordanian officer injured.

The only detail left uncertain is if the shooter was a Jordanian military gate guard, or if he was actually one of the “moderate” rebels which the Special Forces men were there to train.
The slaying of three Green Berets comes after years of the Special Forces soldiers assigned to the CIA’s Timber Sycamore program complaining that the moderate rebels they had been sent to train were actually ISIS and al-Nusra infiltrators. The vetting that the CIA does of the rebels is dubious at best, consisting of bio-metric trace searches in old databases which are far from comprehensive. The Special Forces soldiers have repeatedly brought up the fact that the rebels they have to train have also failed their polygraphs and display allegiances to Islamists during interviews. Such concerns have also been expressed by the CIA’s para-military component, called Ground Branch, which have also gone ignored.....




Tony Cartalucci at NewAtlas
US Feigns Human Rights Concerns in Philippines

US once invaded, mass murdered, and terrorized the population of the Philippines, on a scale vastly dwarfing Duterte's "war on drugs."
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is heading a controversial campaign against crime, embodied in his "war on drugs" which has led to violence spanning the nation's troubled urban centers. President Duterte's comments have ranged from reasonable, to utterly indifferent regarding fears of extrajudicial executions, vigilantism, and very real human rights abuses - opening a door of opportunity for his political opponents both at home and abroad.

President Duterte's inability to clearly condemn extrajudicial executions and vigilante violence, along with his inflammatory, provocative, even dangerously demagogic statements both invites further abuses, as well as both legitimate and opportunistic criticism of him, his administration, and his policies.....

Syrian refugees in Morocco talk to DemocracyNow


Paul R Pillar at ConsortiumNews
Iran Deal Tests Trump’s Independence

An early test of whether President Trump will bow to Israel’s political clout may come over the Iran nuclear agreement which Prime Minister Netanyahu wants killed, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar describes.

Among the foreign policy issues on which Donald Trump took a simple anti-Obama, or anti-Clinton, stance during the campaign but about which he had not seemed to have devoted much thought, one of the most prominent and important is the agreement that restricts Iran’s nuclear program, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA.

When the new president does get a chance to give the subject more attention, he will see that opposition to the agreement is primarily a matter of old political baggage.  If he does not want to be burdened with such baggage and desires instead to set his own course, he will build on the agreement rather than succumb to the pressures of those who would like to kill it.

The baggage has had two parts. One has been the effort by President Obama’s political opposition to deny him any major achievements — applicable to the JCPOA in that it has been one of the President’s most significant foreign policy achievements. Even viewed through a crass partisan political lens, this motivation will get more out of date with each day that goes by after Mr. Obama leaves office.

The other part has been opposition of the Netanyahu government in Israel, with all the usual implications of how that government’s postures affect U.S. politics and how the Iran issue has thus been treated as if it were an Israel issue. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opposition has been motivated by the objectives of keeping a regional rival to Israel isolated forever, portraying Iran as the root of all problems in the Middle East, distracting attention from problems that involve Israel and its policies, and keeping U.S. diplomacy and cooperative measures in the Middle East confined to Israel or channels approved by Israel....




Pepe Escobar at TheSaker
China ‘Marco Polo’ Xi Jinping starts jockeying in post-Obama world

In yet one more spectacular chapter of his running Marco Polo in reverse saga, Chinese President Xi Jinping made a strategic stop in Sardinia, Italy, on his way to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Lima, Peru.

Why beautiful Sardinia? Certainly not for a yacht cruise in the Costa Esmeralda. This is all about, once again, the Chinese-driven New Silk Roads.

Huawei is building its largest European HQ in Sardinia. The Chinese want to buy the port of Cagliari. And fabulous pecorino sardo – serious contender for best sheep cheese on the planet – in powdered form, is already feeding millions of Chinese babies.

As a casual extra bonus “Marco Polo” Xi, on Chinese national TV, exhorted his compatriots to invest in a massive tourist invasion of Sardinia. Now this is what a stimulus package in Europe is all about.

Meanwhile, lame duck President Obama, also on his way to APEC, is in Germany passing the caretaker “leader of the free world” baton to a dear-caught-in-the-headlights Angela Merkel. The headlights go by the name Donald Trump.

TPP six feet under
The sight of an ebullient Xi side by side with a dejected Obama against the background of South America’s Pacific coast will be priceless. Those were the days, in the go-go 1990s, when Bill Clinton ruled APEC, imprinting the American agenda. Now Asia-Pacific has to come to grips not only with protectionist Trumponomics, but also the fact that Obama’s cherished TPP – the mercantile arm of the “pivot to Asia” – is, for all practical purposes, dead.

Trump’s transition team, led by Mike Pence, has advised him to bury TPP (grouping the US plus 11 Pacific Rim nations) for good within his first 100 days in office. And the road map goes still further, advising him to drop out of NAFTA as well if a long list of “concessions” is not met.

Dejected US allies – mostly Japan, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand – who had all been counting on the ascension of Hillary and the enthronization of TPP, are bound to conduct “secret” meetings in Peru aiming at a revised deal. That would have to ...



Brandon Turbeville at ActivistPost
Russian Analysis Shows Western-Backed Terrorists Using Chemical Weapons
 Against Civilians
In yet another blow to the credibility of the Western corporate media and the anti-Syria propaganda blitz it has maintained since early 2011, experts from the Russian Center For Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Defense have recently announced that analysis of the shells fired by terrorists at the 1070 Apartment Complex in Aleppo contained chemical weapons.

This new revelation brings Western propaganda crashing to ground in regards to the claims that it is Assad’s government using chemical weapons and that the terrorists have no access to them.

“Rapid sample analysis shows that the toxic substances in the militants’ artillery ammunition were chlorine and white phosphorus,” an analyst from the center said....

Dynamite Truth Teller. The TV host was expecting him to trash Trump like she has been doing, it didn't happen!


Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi at AymennJawadOrg

...This statement from the Dar al-Qada in Salqin that I have obtained was distributed recently (around two weeks ago) in the villages of Jabal al-Summaq, which, as I have documented previously, is an originally Druze area whose inhabitants have been forced to declare conversion to Sunni Islam twice, first under pressure from the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) in late 2013 and then under Jabhat al-Nusra at the beginning of 2015....

....Note the language of the statement in speaking of "newly Muslim sects like what was known as the Druze," referring to the conversion of the Druze in Jabal al-Summaq to Sunni Islam. This illustrates the continuity in policy towards the people of Jabal al-Summaq, in that the imposition of Sunni Islam remains in place despite the rebranding from Jabhat al-Nusra to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham.....




From ZeroHedge
Putin Calls Trump To Congratulate President Elect, Renormalize Relations

Moments ago the Kremlin released a statement in which the Russian presidency reported that Putin and Trump held a conversation, in which the Russian leader congratulated his American counterpart again on his victory in the presidential election, wished him "success in the implementation of the pre-election program, and noted his willingness to build a partnership dialogue with the new administration on the principles of equality, mutual respect and non-interference in the internal affairs of each other."

During the conversation, Putin and Trump "not only agreed to assess the current unsatisfactory state of bilateral relations, but also spoke in favor of active joint work to normalize relations and aim for constructive cooperation on a wide range of issues. The call emphasized in particular the importance of creating a solid foundation of bilateral ties through the development of trade and economic relations.

In the call, it was also noted that that "next year marks 210 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between Russia and the United States, which in itself should stimulate a return to pragmatic, mutually beneficial cooperation, which would meet the interests of both countries, stability and security throughout the world."


Saturday, November 19, 2016

New Zealand's earthquakes


From BBC
New Zealand quake: The geological impact of a 'complex' tremor
The powerful earthquakes which hit New Zealand were some of the most complex ever recorded, say scientists.

Earthquakes are caused by a sudden slip on a fault, the fractures in Earth's crust. There are three types of faults: strike-slip, normal and reverse faults. These faults indicate different movements of rocks.


Tonkin and Taylor, an engineering firm surveying the damage, said a section of the seabed along a 110km stretch of coast north of Kaikoura was lifted by between 2-2.5m. Prof Nicol said this was likely due to "reverse faulting".

The seabed rise stranded huge amounts of marine life, including crayfish and paua - an edible sea snail harvested for its meat and shells. Experts say it could take years for the wildlife to recover, a serious concern for the fishing industry.



Was US Senator. Nancy Schaefer and husband killed because they knew too much?


Remember one thing ... what are considered to be conspiracy theories, usually turn out to be cold hard facts after an honest and thorough probe.

Go through the Schaefer's report,and then read what's in the second link. Bear in mind that the taking away of kids from their parents and assigning them to foster homes  where they are often sexually abused, have become a Billion Dollar business. Big money means the Powers-that-be are the ultimate gainers and just like how the Mafia operated, the PTB won't let go of something that's giving them a life of luxury and untold wealth at the cost of young lives and thousands of ruined families.

The following are few points from Senator Schaefer's report of November 16, 2007

From the legislative desk of Senator Nancy Schaefer
50th District of Georgia
THE CORRUPT BUSINESS OF CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES 
By Nancy Schaefer, Senator, 50th District

My introduction into child protective service cases
 was due to a grandmother in an adjoining
state who called me with her tragic story.  Her two
 granddaughters had been taken from her
daughter who lived in my district.  Her daughter wa
s told wrongly that if she wanted to see
her children again she should sign a paper and give
 up her children.  Frightened and young,
the daughter did.  I have since discovered that par
ents are often threatened into cooperation
of permanent separation of their children.
The children were taken to another county and place
d in foster care. The foster parents 
were told wrongly that they could adopt the childre
n. The grandmother then jumped through
every hoop known to man in order to get her grandda
ughters.  When the case finally came to
court it was made evident by one of the foster pare
nt’s children that the foster parents had, 
at any given time, 18 foster children and that the
foster mother had an inappropriate
relationship with the caseworker.
In the courtroom, the juvenile judge, acted as thou
gh she was shocked and said the two girls
would be removed quickly.  They were not removed. 
Finally, after much pressure being
applied to the Department of Family and Children Se
rvices of Georgia (DFCS), the children
were driven to South Georgia to meet their grandmot
her who gladly drove to meet them.
After being with their grandmother two or three day
s, the judge, quite out of the blue, wrote
up a new order to send the girls to their father, w
ho previously had no interest in the case and
who lived on the West Coast.  The father was in “ad
ult entertainment”.  His girlfriend worked

as an “escort” and his brother, who also worked in
the business, had a sexual charge brought
against him.
Within a couple of days the father was knocking on
the grandmother’s door and took the 
girls kicking and screaming to California.  
The father developed an unusual relationship with t
he former foster parents and soon moved
back to the southeast, and the foster parents began
 driving to the father’s residence and
picking up the little girls for visits.  The oldest
 child had told her mother and grandmother 
on two different occasions that the foster father m
olested her.
To this day after five years, this loving, caring b
lood relative grandmother does not even 
have visitation privileges with the children.  The
little girls are in my opinion permanently
traumatized and the young mother of the girls was s
o traumatized with shock when the 
girls were first removed from her that she has not
recovered. ........

Brian Shilhavy of Health Impact News at MedicalKidnap
Senator Nancy Schaefer: Did her Fight Against CPS Child Kidnapping Cause her Murder?
Georgia Senator Nancy Schaefer may have known more about State-sponsored kidnappings than any other politician in the United States before she was murdered in March of 2010. Her published report, The Corrupt Business of Child Protective Services, is reproduced below. It was the basis for many lectures and interviews she gave on the topic. She claims the report caused her to lose her Senate seat in the Georgia State Senate....

....Less than a year before she was murdered, Nancy Schaefer appeared on the Alex Jones show to discuss the American foster care and adoption business, and the terrible corruption involved with it, including “bounties” on children and child sex trafficking. Her interview is available via YouTube, and we reproduce it here......

....After she lost her State Senate seat due to what she believes was her report on CPS, she began to talk to other State Representatives and Senators around the country who were being confronted with CPS issues in their district, but they told her that if they did anything, they would lose their jobs just as Nancy Schaefer had.

Alex Jones asked her if there were “bounties on the heads of children” and Mrs. Schaefer said “yes,” and that in fact just the day before she had learned that “an order” had come in to a CPS office stating what kind of child someone wanted to adopt.

Mrs. Schaefer states that the financial motive for the State to legally kidnap children was put in place in 1974 by Walter Mondale with the “Adoption and Safe Families Act.” This was later expanded by President Bill Clinton in 1997 with The Adoption and Safe Families Act that gave states cash bonuses for every child adopted out of foster care.....

The wonderful politically incorrect world of Ben Garrison cartoons





 














Monday, November 14, 2016

News, views and opinions from the Alternative Media ... week ending Nov 13


Joe Lauria at ConsortiumNews
US hawks gamble on Turkeys invasions
....Publicly the U.S. opposes Turkish military intervention in Raqqa and Mosul, while privately it is effectively riding Erdogan’s outsized ambitions to let Turkish NATO troops create Hillary Clinton’s desired “safe zone” for rebel forces fighting to overthrow the Syrian government. This “safe zone” is on territory taken mostly from Islamic State that could eventually stretch from northeast Syria into western Iraq.

Yet, there is abundant evidence that Turkey has supported Islamic State from its incarnation as one of the jihadist forces seeking to overthrow Syria’s secular government of Bashar al-Assad. If Erdogan is now fighting the terrorist group, it may well be because he wants something like the Caliphate for himself and for Turkey, which abolished it in 1924. And that just might fit into U.S. plans, which President Obama has already altered to accommodate Clinton’s desires.

“The goal here is to take back Mosul,” Clinton said at the last debate, as if already speaking as the U.S. President, “and then continue to press into Syria to begin to take back and move on Raqqa.”

A Sunnistan Corridor
A safe area in eastern Syria stretching to western Iraq could implement the so-called Plan B: dividing Syria to weaken it, while also creating a “Sunnistan” corridor for a gas pipeline from Qatar through the Iraq/Syria border area to Turkey and on to Europe.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad rejected a Qatar pipeline through Syrian territory in 2009, a move that some analysts think spurred the Gulf-backed insurgency to overthrow him. However, settling for Plan B, a partition of Syria, would be an admission that Plan A, “regime change,” had failed.

There might also be another crucial task for Turkey on behalf of Washington’s hawks in both Syria and Iraq. Erdogan may well target his move into Iraq on the area of the Shia Turkmen around Tal Afar. The Shia-led Iraqi government wants to get that area under central government control to possibly open a corridor from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, a corridor Clinton has vowed to close in accordance with a longstanding Israeli goal. Turkey could also cut this passage in northern Syria.

Is the U.S. allowing Turkish troops to create these facts on the ground? ....

Nigel Farage


From SputnikNews
Daesh Leader Manages to Escape From Iraq's Mosul

The Iraqi armed forces press service said Monday about the escape of Daesh leader Abu Bakr Baghdadi from Iraqi Mosul in the course of the operation to liberate the city conducted by the country's army together with the international coalition.

The Iraqi prime minister announced a campaign on October 17 to reclaim the key Daesh stronghold, with mixed forces of Iraqi army, Kurdish militias and Sunni Arab tribesmen advancing from south, east and north......





From RT
Ukraine's Maidan is eating itself: 
Saakashvili quits Odessa with all guns blazing

 This is what happens when a loose cannon backfires. Eighteen months after he arrived in Odessa promising to reform the notoriously corrupt region, Mikhail Saakashvili has exited his post as governor.

While I’m writing this, a song by Swedish rockers The Hives is bouncing around my brain. It’s called Hate to Say I Told You So. The tune is apt right now, because what everyone who understands Ukraine - and doesn’t live in cloud cuckoo land - warned would eventually happen is happening. Maidan is eating itself. And it hasn’t taken very long either.

Just over two and a half years since the violent coup/revolution which Western leaders and opinion formers promised would transform Ukraine, nothing much has changed. In fact, things are arguably worse than ever. The economy lies in ruins and the country is divided. Perhaps permanently.

Now another high profile figure has leaped from the sinking ship. And it’s a big beast this time. Mikhail Saakashvili tendered his resignation on Monday and he didn’t depart quietly. Instead, he accused highly-placed officials in Kiev of obstructing his attempts at change.

The timing isn’t hugely surprising either, as ‘Misha’ proved his heart wasn’t in the job last month, when he predicted his imminent return to Tbilisi.This proved yet another delusion, as Saakashvili’s hopes of a victory for his former political movement in Georgia’s general election ran aground. On the contrary, his party was annihilated at the polls....

Ron Paul


Ramzy Baroud at ForeignPolicyJournal
Why Palestinians Want to Sue Britain:
99 Years since the Balfour Declaration
Palestinians will continue to resist as long as the reasons that inspired their rebellion nearly a century ago remain in place.

Last July, the Palestinian Authority took the unexpected, although belated step of seeking Arab backing in suing Britain over the Balfour Declaration. That ‘declaration’ was the first ever explicit commitment made by Britain, and the West in general, to establish a Jewish homeland atop an existing Palestinian homeland.

It is too early to tell whether the Arab League would heed the Palestinian call, or if the PA would even follow through, especially considering that the latter has the habit of making too many proclamations backed by little or no action.

However, it seems that the next year will witness a significant tug of war regarding the Balfour Declaration, the 100th anniversary of which will be commemorated on November 2, 2017.....




From MediaLens
Flagship Of Fearmongering:
The Guardian, MI5 And State Propaganda
Readers of the Guardian woke up last Tuesday (November 1, 2016) to find that the newspaper and website had been given over to promoting MI5. To be more precise: the paper was trumpeting a fearmongering 'exclusive' with MI5 Director-General, Andrew Parker. It was billed as 'the first interview of its kind' and was conducted by the paper's deputy editor, Paul Johnson, and the diplomatic editor, Ewen MacAskill. However, it quickly became clear that this 'interview' consisted largely of the two senior Guardian journalists listening to the MI5 chief and diligently writing down what he said with no discernible challenge or scrutiny....

....This was state ideology masquerading as robust reporting; in Britain's 'flagship' newspaper of liberal journalism, no less. The front page of the Guardian website, with an accompanying photograph of two armed policemen, was a model example of propaganda that should be pored over by journalism students for decades to come:




Jason Ditz at Antiwar
Trump Expects to End US Aid to Syrian Rebels

Says US Has No Idea Who 'Moderate' Rebels Actually Are
In a new interview with the Wall Street Journal, President-elect Donald Trump said that he is likely to end the US support of “moderate” Syrian rebel groups, saying that “we have no idea who these people are” and that the US needs to focus on defeating ISIS.

The interview only briefly touched on foreign policy, but Trump echoed similar concerns about backing Syrian rebels in the past, saying that the defeat of Assad could lead to something even worse in the country, and today warning that backing the rebellion risks starting a fight with Syria and Russia.

This has been an ongoing problem for the US, with the Pentagon seeking to fight ISIS and the CIA and State Department seeking to shift the focus away from ISIS and toward regime change. The CIA is heavily involved in arming and funding the rebels.....




Shawn Helton at 21stcenturywire
‘COLOR REV’ AGIT PROP: George Soros MoveOn Agitators
March on America – as Billionaire Instigator Sued
Anti-Trump street protests linked to the Soros’ funded organization MoveOn.org have cascaded across the nation for the third day following the 2016 presidential election result.

Mainstream media outlets like CNN and MSNBC have given the protests around-the-clock media coverage, drowning out all other news stories, including a successful transition meeting between the President Elect and President Barack Obama....

....Last year during the ongoing European migrant crisis, startling claims were levied by Hungarian PM Victor Orban (left photo), concerning the role played by Soros.

PM Orban contended that the founder and chair of Open Society Foundations (Open Society Institute), was entrenched in a “circle of activists,” that “inadvertently become part of this international human-smuggling network.”

The stunning declaration by Orban recalled the misguided machinations of ‘The Occupy Movement’(aka OWS) in 2011, as well as the Soros funded protests in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, along with other Black Lives Matter protests this past year – all of which were uniquely designed to push naive participants (along with paid provocateurs) into violent action and social unrest....

From TelesurTV
Son of Honduran Human Rights and Resistance Activist Murdered

In post-coup Honduras, a coup which Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton supported, the corpses continue to pile up.

Human rights organizations are raising alarm after yet another assassination in Honduras, this time of the son of a prominent resistance activist, human rights defender, and aspiring progressive candidate for local political office with the left-wing Libre party.
Fernando Aleman Banegas was shot dead in the early hours of Monday morning when we was getting into his car after leaving a club in the northern port city of La Ceiba, according to local reports. The gunmen reportedly fled the scene on a motorcycle. ...




Robert Fisk at InformationClearingHouse
A View of the Syrian War From the Golan Heights
One Syrian lieutenant described to me how he directed his artillery fire onto an Israeli jeep in the Jabhat al-Nusra occupied town of Al-Hamidiya inside Syria and destroyed it. The jeep might have been a gift or borrowed from Israel
From Colonel Saleh’s forward position on his front line north of Quneitra, he has a unique and exclusive view of the Syrian war. To his west and south is a vast area of his country which is occupied by Jabhat al-Nusra Islamist fighters – their earthen ramparts and supply roads are scarcely half a mile away. Then, another couple of miles away, Israeli soldiers are inside their concrete positions on the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, above the old and Nusra-held Syrian city of Quneitra.

“You see that mosque over there, just to the right of the water tower?” the colonel asks. “Well, Nusra is there. And you see the triangular hill beyond? The Israelis are there.” It’s what you call a politically intriguing battlefield – yes, shells do come whizzing in towards the Syrians from Nusra and also from the Israelis. The Syrians concentrate their fire on Nusra but Nusra’s casualties are often taken through the Israeli lines for hospital treatment in Haifa.

So whose side is Israel on? .....

article below from ScientificAmerican is from sep 26
Trump Picks Top Climate Skeptic to Lead EPA Transition

Choosing Myron Ebell means Trump plans to drastically reshape climate policies
....Ebell appears to relish criticism from the left.

In a biography submitted when he testified before Congress, he listed among his recognitions that he had been featured in a Greenpeace “Field Guide to Climate Criminals,” dubbed a “misleader” on global warming by Rolling Stone and was the subject of a motion to censure in the British House of Commons after Ebell criticized the United Kingdom’s chief scientific adviser for his views on global warming.

More recently, Ebell has called the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan for greenhouse gases illegal and said that Obama joining the Paris climate treaty “is clearly an unconstitutional usurpation of the Senate’s authority.”

He told Vanity Fair in 2007, “There has been a little bit of warming ... but it’s been very modest and well within the range for natural variability, and whether it’s caused by human beings or not, it’s nothing to worry about.”

Ebell’s views appear to square with Trump’s when it comes to EPA’s agenda. Trump has called global warming “bullshit” and he has said he would “cancel” the Paris global warming accord and roll back President Obama’s executive actions on climate change (ClimateWire, May 27).

From ZeroHedge
Trump Reveals Policy Goals:
"Building That Wall", End "War On Coal", Repeal Obamacare, Dismantle Dodd-Frank

On his transition website GreatAgain.gov, the Trump team has laid out the framework of his initial policies with policies focused i) on American Security including as Defense and National security, Immigration Reform and Building That Wall, and Energy Independence; ii) Getting America Back to Work Again including Tax Reform; Regulatory Reform; Trade Reform; Education; Transportation & Infrastructure and Financial Services Reform; and iii) Government for the people including Healthcare Reform (Obamacare), Veterans Administration Reform and Protecting Americans' Constitutional Rights.

The key highlights include:

    overhaul in immigration policies, including "Building that Wall" , the Trump transition team will "execute on the following ten-point plan to restore integrity to our immigration system, protect our communities, and put America first" - i) Build a Wall on the Southern Border; ii) End Catch-and-Release; iii) Zero Tolerance for Criminal Aliens; iv) Block Funding for Sanctuary Cities; v) Cancel Unconstitutional Executive Orders & Enforce All Immigration Laws; vi) Suspend the Issuance of Visas to Any Place Where Adequate Screening Cannot Occur; vii) Ensure that Other Countries Take Their People Back When We Order Them Deported; viii) Finally Complete the Biometric Entry-Exit Visa Tracking System; ix) Turn Off the Jobs and Benefits Magnet
    promoting a strong, robust military force to defend against the "threat posed to our nation and our allies by radical ideologies that direct and inspire terrorism." The administration will push for immediate and sustainable actions to counter the threats posed by radical ideologies; will address the "catastrophic threats posed by nuclear weapons and cyber attacks" and will "ensure our strategic nuclear triad is modernized to ensure it continues to be an effective deterrent, and his Administration will review and minimize our nation’s infrastructure vulnerabilities to cyber threats."
    dismantling and replacing of the Dodd-Frank Act financial-sector law with pro-growth policies. This means that banks will be allowed to not only engage in prop trading again, but to invest directly in hedge funds. “The Dodd-Frank economy does not work for working people. Bureaucratic red tape and Washington mandates are not the answer,” says statement on Trump’s official transition website.
    changing the tax code: policies since President Obama took office “have been blocked in one way or another” by Democratic opposition, the transition website says in section outlining “tax reform/economic vision.” It adds that “a Trump administration tax plan can be summarized as lower, simpler, fairer, and pro-growth.” as the website summarizes "a Trump Administration tax plan can be summarized as lower, simpler, fairer, and pro-growth."
    addressing the millions of American jobs that have been lost over the last decade "because of trade deals that do not put Americans first." ....

Broward County election fraud

From AhramEnglish
Egypt slams Erdogan's 'double standards'
Egypt condemned what it described as “irresponsible” statements made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about the Egyptian government.

Earlier on Thursday, Erdogan said during an interview with Qatari channel Al-Jazeera that he accused “the Egyptian regime of providing support to the Gulen movement”, which is led by Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who has been accused of masterminding the failed coup attempt in Turkey last July.

“We differentiate between the Egyptian people and the administration there. We love the nation like it was ours and that’s why we have provided all support to them but we are against coup governments and the violation of freedoms, and we will stand with the Egyptian people in their fight for democracy,” the Turkish president said during the interview aired on Thursday.

In an official statement on Thursday, the Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman said Egypt considered the Turkish statements as a “continuation to the blundering and double standards approach that the Turkish policies have been characterised  by through out the past years.”

The foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid expressed his “surprise” at the Turkish president inaugurating himself as a “guardian of democracy and protector of freedoms at a time when his government is arresting hundreds of professors and media personnel and tens of parliamentary members, as well as shutting down tens of newspapers and eliminating thousands of civil workers and army officers and judges from their jobs.....

Jake Johnson from a May 2015 article at Alternet
...Trump has been viewed with bewilderment by politicians 
who have divorced themselves from the needs of the people and who have sold them false goods to get ahead. But Trump, as Chomsky's prescient interview demonstrates, was inevitable.

"The mood of the country is frightening," Chomsky concluded. "The level of anger, frustration and hatred of institutions is not organized in a constructive way. It is going off into self-destructive fantasies."

Trump embodies the fantasy: He is the anger, the hammer with which his supporters hope to smash America's institutions and take America back to a mythical, blissful past.
America's political class has not simply faltered under the weight of the Trump phenomenon; its failures created him, and the establishment is now faced with a choice. It will either address the legitimate concerns of the people who are attracted to Trump's fake populism — from his critiques of disastrous trade deals to his contempt for America's foreign policy elite — or it will resign itself to the fact that the Republican Party is now the party of Donald Trump, who says out loud what Republicans have been saying in code for decades.....

Documentary from RT
...The practice is called Bacha Posh,
which literally means “dressed up as a boy”. Girls in this role wear boys’ clothes, have close-cropped hair and answer to a boy’s name in the street. They get the freedoms that men in Afghan society enjoy at the price of their true identity. As they grow up, however, most go back to behaving like women again: they get married and must comply with the traditional restrictions women face
For girls who have tasted freedom while posing as boys, it is particularly difficult to readjust to the behaviour expected of Afghan women. For this reason, some girls decide against going back to following female rules, preferring to remain Bacha Posh instead. RT Doc met some of the Bacha Posh of Afghanistan, and they all had very different stories to tell. Amena’s parents decided that she would be the boy in the family. She doesn’t enjoy her status but has to help her father with his work. Fazilya has been raised as a boy since birth and knows no different, while Asiya consciously chose the male role to gain more freedom. To hear more of the stories Afghanistan’s pretend boys have to tell, watch the full documentary...